


Augmentation

by Sequence



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Autistic!Dairine, Canon Autistic Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2122350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sequence/pseuds/Sequence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pinch-hit thing written in like 3 hours so that someone could have their autistic Dairine dream come true. Darryl visits Dairine, and Dairine has a realization.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Augmentation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Baozhale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baozhale/gifts).



Dairine learned quickly. It wasn't long before she knew how being strange was worse than being snotty, and how much the world did not care about her and her needs. So she learned how to do without the world, making herself slightly feared by those around her, keeping them from seeing anything they could use against her. Being alone was more fun, anyway, once she found books, and later, Star Wars and computers and all the delightful fun you could have with all of them. She slayed Darth Vader a hundred times in her mind, from all possible angles, reveling in the perfect scene of justice triumphing, and defeated every programming challenge her teachers could give her.

Eventually, she found her buddies, her dearest friends, her children, in a way. The vast network of intelligences that never tried to overwhelm her, that pushed her along as fast as she could take it, and no further, that found ways to compress their information so that she could understand just as fast as them, in her own way. Even when she was away from them, they were never really far away from her, and Spot helped, too. Having someone always there who wouldn't make her slow down for them, chop her words up to try to cram inside their heads was _amazing_.

Her world expanded a little again when she met Darryl. One of Nita’s acquaintances or something- just a strange, dark-haired boy, somewhere around her age, who popped into the house now and then. Dairine was aware of him before she met him- she’d helped Nita go walking about his brain, after all- and she knew that he was helping Nita and Kit with that Mars thing. And that he was autistic, whatever that was. She hadn’t found any time to go looking into it, and just had a vague idea, picked up from what Nita had said, and from things on the news. Dairine just shrugged that off anyway- it was none of _her_ business what was going on with him, and by now she was busy working with those simulations Nelaid was giving her, no time to go looking into what her sister’s friend’s brain was like.

After the Mars thing had settled down, and Kit had stopped being crazy with whatever trouble and fuss he’d gotten himself into, Darryl stopped by again, this time, when Dairine was home for the weekend, fiddling with some of Spot’s new manual settings- that updated record function could be pretty interesting, if played with in the right way. He popped up in the backyard, knocked before he walked into the kitchen, smiled a little crookedly before he said anything, and as she glanced up, was looking more at her eyebrow than her eyes. Which was kind of nice, actually.

“Hey, is Nita ‘round? No big if she isn’t, I just wanted to see if she was up to going to Mars to help His Kitness clean up his mess.”

Dairine shrugged, looking back down at her computer. “I think she’s out with Dad, getting groceries. She should be back in an hour or so.” A slight pause, and then Darryl replied.

“Thanks. Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, is that your manual?”

She closed Spot’s lid, stroking the softly glowing apple on his back. “You _could_ say that, if you thought he was an it. He’s more than just that, though,” Dairine replied snippily, then hesitated for a moment, fingertips tapping. Despite her snarky response, Darryl seemed interested. “He’s a wizard himself. I met him on my Ordeal.”

Darryl grinned widely, his whole face brightening up with it as he sat down on the couch. “That’s so cool! Does he help with the diagrams like the WizPods do?”

“Yeah, _and_ I can write papers on him, unlike those glorified mp3 players.” She grinned back. Sure, she thought those WizPods were slick pieces of hardware, but nothing on Earth could beat Spot. Some of his latest upgrades were _really_ neat.

“Hey! Those glorified mp3 players can turn into glorified tablets, thank you _very_ much.”

“Oh, like that’s any big deal. Tablets are just stuck-up touchscreens.”

Darryl shrugged. “Well, you got me there. But at least tablets have cool AAC apps. Laptops, not so much. Unless you _want_ to write out every single word that’s on your mind, and really, that’s just way too much hassle when you're trying to take a moment.”

She frowned a little, fingers still smoothing over Spot, feeling his very slight warmth. “AAC? What’s that?” The bit about taking a moment piqued her interest, though- there were times when Dairine would get so irritated at her stupid classmates that she could practically scream, and it was _such a bother_  trying to explain things to them, then. Sometimes she’d stumble over her words and have to treat them with extra scorn, to make sure they wouldn't make fun of her, or spread it around.

“Y’know. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, something like that. Here, let me show you.” Darryl pulled his WizPod out of his pocket and unfolded it a few times- Dairine watched avidly. That was a sweet trick, even if she did pooh-pooh it in an argument. Then he turned the screen towards her, and she saw large, simple symbols with words underneath. “It’s for when I’m not feeling up to typing or talking. Real helpful.”

Dairine looked down at Spot, struggling with a sudden moment of envy. Darryl got to not talk sometimes? He didn't feel he had to force words over a leaden tongue in response to a far-away question? Then she stopped herself. Everyone got that way sometimes. You just had to deal with it. She glanced up at the easy-to-understand pictures. Didn't they?

“Do only autistics use those?” She blurted out, a sudden insecurity opening up inside her. Yeah, she didn't like to talk all the time, and she hated cleaning her room because then all her stuff was moved around, and she got really intense about things, but that didn't mean she was weird, right? Her classmates were just better at hiding it. Still, wouldn't it be a nice challenge to give Spot something like that? Maybe she could use that record function to record her voice, so if she typed something out, Spot could talk for her…

“Nah, lots of people use them for lots of reasons. Do you want to try?” Darryl’s expression was hopeful as he glanced at her fidgeting hands.

Dairine shook her head, a little preoccupied. Would it be simpler to read some basic words and have Spot extrapolate the rest of her voice, or do it like those Vocaloid things Carmela was interested in, and just record some syllables… She dragged herself out of her reverie and shook her head again. “No. And anyway, Spot could totally do that. I’ll show you.”

He laughed at the sudden change in her voice, and folded up his WizPod. “Alright, alright, Miss Wonderpants. Next time I’m by, you show me what you got, yeah? Meanwhile, I got a date with a rock on Mars.”

Spot wiggled from her hands and started trotting upstairs as Dad’s car rolled into the driveway. Dairine rolled her eyes. “You boys and Mars, really. Didn't you cause enough trouble last time?”

Darryl just grinned as Nita stepped into the living room.

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS LIKE THE FIRST THING I'VE WRITTEN IN 5 YEARS AND I WROTE IT IN LIKE 2 HOURS SORRY I DIDN'T COMPLETELY DO MY RESEARCH AND IDK IF DAIRINE AND DARRYL HAVE OFFICIALLY MET IN CANON


End file.
